The Passport Office on Thompson Boulevard in Nassau.
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune News Editor
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
THE long-awaited protocols for many affected by last year’s landmark Privy Council citizenship ruling –– which established that children born to Bahamian men are entitled to citizenship regardless of their mother’s nationality –– have been gazetted.
The protocols were tabled in the House of Assembly yesterday.
People affected by the ruling whose father is identified on their birth certificate can already apply to the Passport Office for a passport.
Those whose father is not identified on their birth certificate must take a DNA test through a process outlined in the act.
The DNA test can be done at any laboratory registered and licensed by the Hospitals and Health Facilities Licensing Board to “collect biological specimens for submission to foreign referring laboratories for the purpose of DNA testing and analysis to establish paternity”.
Likewise, any lab in the United States that is an AABB Accredited Relationship DNA Testing Facility can perform the test and report its findings to the chief passport officer.
People who go to a local designated lab must provide a passport, national insurance card, driver’s licence, voter’s card or other government-issued identification with a photograph.
They must complete a form containing information about the “biological specimen provider’s name, address, race, relationship to the person seeking to prove paternity or to the person alleged to be his father, and whether any of them has had blood transfusions or a bone marrow transplant”.
The person who collected the biological specimen must not have a relationship with any of the people whose specimens are being collected for testing and analysis, be it a spouse, a child, a family member or a friend.
The specimens must not be kept in its provider’s possession, and the name and contact information of all who witnessed the collection must be kept as a permanent record.
The lab will be required to package the specimen in a biological specimen envelope, place the envelope and pre-paid return envelopes addressed to the chief passport officer in a larger envelope and arrange for the envelope to be collected by a local courier service for transport to a foreign referring laboratory for DNA testing and analysis.
In cases where the applicant’s father has died, alternative sources of biological specimens can be a child of the man alleged to be the applicant’s father, a sibling of the man, a parent of the man or the biological children of the parents of the man alleged to be the father of the applicant.
Comments
stillwaters 7 months, 3 weeks ago
It's time to give the children of these Bahamian men their citizenship. Just make sure chances of fraud are kept to a minimum or are completely eradicated.
Sickened 7 months, 3 weeks ago
Now if we can also make it fair and sensible for Bahamian woman. Wouldn't that be something.
Economist 7 months, 3 weeks ago
Bahamian women are second class citizens and have fewer rights. That is the way they like it, just look at how they voted in the last referendum.
Had they voted for the change they would be equal. Many men voted for the change, so it would have carried, if the majority of women had voted for it.
Go figure.
ExposedU2C 7 months, 2 weeks ago
Nice try Economist at deceitful reverse psychology, but you have it all so wrong.
It was a Vomit Christie led PLP government that ignored the will of the Bahamian people as expressed in the outcome of the last duly held national referendum on PLP proposed changes to the most sacrosanct citizenship provisions of our Constitution. Back then most Bahamians saw through the many deceitful nationwide tirades of intellectual disingenuous clowns like Sean McWeeney, Sr. and Rubie Nottage, with many Bahamians (men and women) being so disgusted at the PLP's hideous objectives in changing the citizenship provisions that they even refused to bother voting.
Vomit, Sean and Rubie ended up being so embarrassed by the outcome of the referendum vote that they unconstitutionally dismissed it as a mere "survey" in an effort to try save face.
ExposedU2C 7 months, 3 weeks ago
The population of The Bahamas is about to skyrocket when you consider all of the many children of the thousands of Haitian men who entered the Bahamas illegally over the decades but were nevertheless wrongfully given citizenship in exchange for their vote or for cold cash under the table, or for exploitable labour purposes. And these same Haitian men have many children living in Haiti as well as in the Bahamas.
Our already over crowded and under resourced public hospitals/clinics, public schools, social welfare services, etc., etc., will never be able to cope with the explosive growth in our population from the impending influx to our nation of thousands of children in Haiti fathered by Haitian men who entered the Bahamas illegally over the decades, and by hook or crook managed to obtain Bahamian Citizenship from our corrupt government officials.
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